Add paid search and media into your marketing mix!

With frequent algorithm updates, organic media isn’t enough to boost your brand. You need to add paid media into the mix to harness every opportunity to unite your brand with target customers.

Paid content allows you to reach audiences who may not have otherwise come across you. Paid media can help you expand your reach faster and enact another stream of revenue (if done right).

Whether you’re new to paid media or are an experienced digital marketer looking to refresh their knowledge, we have the perfect guide for you.

What is paid media?

As the name suggests, paid media encapsulates any media you pay to promote. This can include pay-per-click (PPC) ads, retargeting, sponsorships, paid influencer content and paid social media ads.

Along with owned and earned media, paid media is an avenue businesses can use to advertise their content online. Paid media is delivered to target users through paid search results, display ads, video ads and paid social media posts.

Paid media can help businesses connect with larger audiences, increase brand visibility and drive greater website traffic. It can also help brands fulfill their objectives at each stage of the buying cycle – awareness, consideration, conversion and nurture.

Paid media is a valuable arm in ensuring the right message is delivered to the right audience at the right time.

Define your “why”

Purpose should drive everything you do as a business. For all your initiatives, you need to understand how it contributes to the overarching mission of your business. This ensures cohesion across your teams, outputs and interaction with customers.

Before you begin building a paid media campaign, ensure you and your team are clear on why a paid media campaign needs to be created. What do you hope to achieve with your paid media campaign? How will paid media help you fulfill your overarching business goals?

Common objectives for paid media campaigns include:

• boosting product sales and/or sign ups
• building a larger customer base
• driving increased website traffic
• elevating brand awareness.

Know who you’re talking to

There’s no point building ads if you don’t know who you’re wanting to target with your messaging. Building ads without knowing your audience is akin to walking in the dark. There’s ample room for error in both scenarios.

Minimize the risk of campaign failure by performing thorough audience analysis before building your paid funnel.

You need to know:

• basic demographics
• brands they already follow and engage with
• pain points
• goals.

Once you’ve built a comprehensive profile of your target audience, you need to establish how your business can help solve their challenges and make life better. This is the salient message that needs to be communicated across your paid media campaign.

Target the right channel

There’s no one-size-fits-all paid media strategy. Each channel has different demographics, algorithms and requirements for advertisers. For each channel you target, you need to create a tailored paid media campaign.

Decide on the channels you intend to leverage before implementing a paid media strategy. The channels you choose should be the ones your target audience already uses. When you build a paid media campaign into a channel, you’re often required to use the channel’s innate ad tools to create, schedule and launch.

Here are some channels you could use for paid media advertising:

Facebook

Facebook allows you to retarget specific groups. Know the types of people and groups you intend to target before building your Facebook funnel.

Types of ads available on Facebook include:

• video ads
• carousel ads
• image ads
• collection ads.

Twitter

Sponsored ads typically look like regular tweets on Twitter. This is useful for instigating seamless engagement.

Twitter ad options include:

• Twitter amplify
• Twitter live
• promoted ads (video, image and carousel).

Instagram

A mobile-first platform, Instagram helps you tap into the millennial and Gen Z markets. It’s also a great platform for sharing products online.

Types of ads on Instagram include:

• video ads
• photo ads
• story ads
• carousel ads
• collection ads
• IGTV ads.

TikTok

Incredibly popular among younger demographics, TikTok is a mobile-first platform that accommodates short video clips of user-generated content. TikTok ads are a great way of demonstrating creative skills, engaging your target audience (if a young demographic), boosting brand awareness and directing leads through the sales funnel.

Types of TikTok ads include:

• in-feed ads
• branded hashtag challenge
• brand takeover
• TopView

Determine budget

Having an allocated budget is crucial for a successful paid media campaign. It keeps resources in check and helps prevent the business from overspending. Before launching a paid media campaign, you need to know the budget, the expected return of investment (ROI) and how much each channel will cost.

Measure your campaign: Set KPIs 

Once you know what channels you want to target and have an allocated budget, you can set KPIs (key performance indicators).

KPIs usually revolve around:

• volume of likes
• volume of shares
• number of views
• number of new followers
• click-through-rate
• conversion rate.

KPIs help you measure the tangible results your paid media campaign is delivering. This allows you to ascertain the successfulness of the campaign.

Creating ads: Bring your vision to life

Be it a video or image, all ads need a clear message and CTA (call to action). Consider the response you intend to elicit in your audience. What do you want them to do after seeing your ad?

Common CTA’s include:

• visit my website
• view our range
• download our free guide
• contact us
• RSVP
• sign up
• learn more.

With any ad you produce, ensure it directs the audience to perform a clear action that serves your business objectives.

Launch: Seize the green light

Once you’ve created the ads, the social platform you’re using will need to approve prior to launching. Most channels then enable you to schedule ads for automatic launching.

Once you launch, diligently monitor the results. See how your ads perform over time and adjust as you go (if necessary).

Paid media campaigns can generate great exposure for your brand. But you need to do it right to reap the rewards.

How can you nail your paid advertising and generate a great ROI?

Think Digivizer. Our platform delivers digital performance insights across all your paid, owned and earned media. This allows you to see what your audience actively engages with, helping you make astute marketing decisions.

Sign up for free and win with data-driven marketing!